Re: Wireless Inspiron 6400 anyone?
On Sun, 22 Oct 2006 07:30:26 -0500 Lane [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sunday 22 October 2006 01:21, Scott Bennett wrote: On Sun, 22 Oct 2006 00:06:36 -0500 Patrick Bowen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Lane wrote: Hello, I've a new inspiron 6400 running FreeBSD 6.1 and I can't get Wireless to work. It works on WXP using the Dell WLAN drivers at http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R115321.EXE I've followed the instructions at http://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/01/05/freebsd-howto-ndisulate-windows-dr ivers/ but no ndis driver shows up after kldload if_ndis. ifconfig -a looks like: bfe0: flags=8843UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST mtu 1500 options=8VLAN_MTU inet6 fe80::215:c5ff:feb8:39e%bfe0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1 inet 172.16.1.42 netmask 0xff00 broadcast 172.16.1.255 ether 00:15:c5:b8:03:9e media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX full-duplex) status: active fwe0: flags=108943UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,NEEDSGIANT mtu 1500 options=8VLAN_MTU inet6 fe80::304f:c0ff:fe9c:7541%fwe0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x2 inet 0.0.0.0 netmask 0xff00 broadcast 255.255.255.255 ether 32:4f:c0:9c:75:41 ch 1 dma 0 I hate to be a wet blanket, but the above is most likely not the wireless card. Did the Inspiron 6400 come with an IrDA (infrared interface)? FreeBSD seems to want to treat the IrDA as an ordinary network interface attached to the firewire controller. A Dell wireless card uses, as you noted, a Broadcom chip set, typically one for which no information has been made available to open source developers. Some of the older ones appear to work using the ndisgen/ndiscvt method. I've had no luck with that so far on an Inspiron XPS (the original model) with a Dell 1450 dual-band wireless card. I called Dell XPS tech. support yesterday to find out the path to the correct bcmwl5.inf file in Windows XP Home Ed., and they *refused* to tell me. They even seemed slightly dismayed that I'd already found the correct bcmwl5.sys file via the Windows XP device manager. After more digging around, I think I've found the correct .inf file, but have yet to find time to try running the two files through ndisgen to see what happens under 6.1. Under 5.x using ndiscvt, I got either panics during boot or else other, non-panic error messages when trying to load the .ko file. [.sig deleted --SB] ___ Thanks, Scott. You may be right about that device, although I don't remember anything about a irDa in the specs. If you have one, the sensor window should be easily visible on the outside of the case. On my Inspiron XPS, it's right below the cover latch button. I've found that I can kldload if_fwip.ko and device fwip0 is created. Whereas no combination bcmwl5.inf and bcmwl5.sys (so far) has ever caused ndis0 to show up (but they do love the kernel panic!). Since fwip0 is specific to ip over firewire, it may mean that the ndis route is a dead end on this particular machine. I just tried ndisgen on the two files from my WinXP system. It complains that the bcmwl5.inf is in Unicode and needs to be converted to ASCII, but that iconv is not installed. Well, iconv is not part of the base system, but rather is in the ports tree. I can't install iconv because, without the wireless access, I have no Internet connection on my FreeBSD 6.1 system. Sigh. I guess I'm going to have to bother a friend to let me plug my machine into his router for a few hours to fetch and build ports. Bummer. I guess I keep monkeying with it until it breaks or works ... then I'll report back :) Yes, I'd like to know if and how you can get past it. For now, it seems that FreeBSD is still only generally useful as a desktop system. To use it on a portable/laptop/notebook, one has to be lucky enough to have a supported wireless card unless one has a plug-in network connection at home. I'm stuck using twm until I can fetch and build a better window manager, and I have no DRM support because the version of X that shipped with FreeBSD 6.1 doesn't have 3D support for a Mobility Radeon 9800. At least under 5.x, MESA DRM was included, which was indeed slow, but did also work. BTW, does anyone know why the radeon driver complains during initialization that a device found in LINUX (but not in FreeBSD) is not found? Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG ** * Internet: bennett at cs.niu.edu * ** * A well regulated and disciplined militia, is at all times a good * * objection to the introduction of that bane of all free governments * * -- a standing army. * *--
Re: Wireless Inspiron 6400 anyone?
On Sun, 22 Oct 2006 00:06:36 -0500 Patrick Bowen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Lane wrote: Hello, I've a new inspiron 6400 running FreeBSD 6.1 and I can't get Wireless to work. It works on WXP using the Dell WLAN drivers at http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R115321.EXE I've followed the instructions at http://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/01/05/freebsd-howto-ndisulate-windows-drivers/ but no ndis driver shows up after kldload if_ndis. ifconfig -a looks like: bfe0: flags=8843UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST mtu 1500 options=8VLAN_MTU inet6 fe80::215:c5ff:feb8:39e%bfe0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1 inet 172.16.1.42 netmask 0xff00 broadcast 172.16.1.255 ether 00:15:c5:b8:03:9e media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX full-duplex) status: active fwe0: flags=108943UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,NEEDSGIANT mtu 1500 options=8VLAN_MTU inet6 fe80::304f:c0ff:fe9c:7541%fwe0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x2 inet 0.0.0.0 netmask 0xff00 broadcast 255.255.255.255 ether 32:4f:c0:9c:75:41 ch 1 dma 0 I hate to be a wet blanket, but the above is most likely not the wireless card. Did the Inspiron 6400 come with an IrDA (infrared interface)? FreeBSD seems to want to treat the IrDA as an ordinary network interface attached to the firewire controller. A Dell wireless card uses, as you noted, a Broadcom chip set, typically one for which no information has been made available to open source developers. Some of the older ones appear to work using the ndisgen/ndiscvt method. I've had no luck with that so far on an Inspiron XPS (the original model) with a Dell 1450 dual-band wireless card. I called Dell XPS tech. support yesterday to find out the path to the correct bcmwl5.inf file in Windows XP Home Ed., and they *refused* to tell me. They even seemed slightly dismayed that I'd already found the correct bcmwl5.sys file via the Windows XP device manager. After more digging around, I think I've found the correct .inf file, but have yet to find time to try running the two files through ndisgen to see what happens under 6.1. Under 5.x using ndiscvt, I got either panics during boot or else other, non-panic error messages when trying to load the .ko file. Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG ** * Internet: bennett at cs.niu.edu * ** * A well regulated and disciplined militia, is at all times a good * * objection to the introduction of that bane of all free governments * * -- a standing army. * *-- Gov. John Hancock, New York Journal, 28 January 1790 * ** ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Wireless Inspiron 6400 anyone?
On Sunday 22 October 2006 01:21, Scott Bennett wrote: On Sun, 22 Oct 2006 00:06:36 -0500 Patrick Bowen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Lane wrote: Hello, I've a new inspiron 6400 running FreeBSD 6.1 and I can't get Wireless to work. It works on WXP using the Dell WLAN drivers at http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R115321.EXE I've followed the instructions at http://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/01/05/freebsd-howto-ndisulate-windows-dr ivers/ but no ndis driver shows up after kldload if_ndis. ifconfig -a looks like: bfe0: flags=8843UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST mtu 1500 options=8VLAN_MTU inet6 fe80::215:c5ff:feb8:39e%bfe0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1 inet 172.16.1.42 netmask 0xff00 broadcast 172.16.1.255 ether 00:15:c5:b8:03:9e media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX full-duplex) status: active fwe0: flags=108943UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,NEEDSGIANT mtu 1500 options=8VLAN_MTU inet6 fe80::304f:c0ff:fe9c:7541%fwe0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x2 inet 0.0.0.0 netmask 0xff00 broadcast 255.255.255.255 ether 32:4f:c0:9c:75:41 ch 1 dma 0 I hate to be a wet blanket, but the above is most likely not the wireless card. Did the Inspiron 6400 come with an IrDA (infrared interface)? FreeBSD seems to want to treat the IrDA as an ordinary network interface attached to the firewire controller. A Dell wireless card uses, as you noted, a Broadcom chip set, typically one for which no information has been made available to open source developers. Some of the older ones appear to work using the ndisgen/ndiscvt method. I've had no luck with that so far on an Inspiron XPS (the original model) with a Dell 1450 dual-band wireless card. I called Dell XPS tech. support yesterday to find out the path to the correct bcmwl5.inf file in Windows XP Home Ed., and they *refused* to tell me. They even seemed slightly dismayed that I'd already found the correct bcmwl5.sys file via the Windows XP device manager. After more digging around, I think I've found the correct .inf file, but have yet to find time to try running the two files through ndisgen to see what happens under 6.1. Under 5.x using ndiscvt, I got either panics during boot or else other, non-panic error messages when trying to load the .ko file. Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG ** * Internet: bennett at cs.niu.edu * ** * A well regulated and disciplined militia, is at all times a good * * objection to the introduction of that bane of all free governments * * -- a standing army. * *-- Gov. John Hancock, New York Journal, 28 January 1790 * ** ___ Thanks, Scott. You may be right about that device, although I don't remember anything about a irDa in the specs. I've found that I can kldload if_fwip.ko and device fwip0 is created. Whereas no combination bcmwl5.inf and bcmwl5.sys (so far) has ever caused ndis0 to show up (but they do love the kernel panic!). Since fwip0 is specific to ip over firewire, it may mean that the ndis route is a dead end on this particular machine. I guess I keep monkeying with it until it breaks or works ... then I'll report back :) Thanks, again lane ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Wireless Inspiron 6400 anyone?
Lane wrote: Hello, I've a new inspiron 6400 running FreeBSD 6.1 and I can't get Wireless to work. It works on WXP using the Dell WLAN drivers at http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R115321.EXE I've followed the instructions at http://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/01/05/freebsd-howto-ndisulate-windows-drivers/ but no ndis driver shows up after kldload if_ndis. ifconfig -a looks like: bfe0: flags=8843UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST mtu 1500 options=8VLAN_MTU inet6 fe80::215:c5ff:feb8:39e%bfe0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1 inet 172.16.1.42 netmask 0xff00 broadcast 172.16.1.255 ether 00:15:c5:b8:03:9e media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX full-duplex) status: active fwe0: flags=108943UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,NEEDSGIANT mtu 1500 options=8VLAN_MTU inet6 fe80::304f:c0ff:fe9c:7541%fwe0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x2 inet 0.0.0.0 netmask 0xff00 broadcast 255.255.255.255 ether 32:4f:c0:9c:75:41 ch 1 dma 0 lo0: flags=8049UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST mtu 16384 inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128 inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x3 inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff00 It seems as if the fwe0 devices wants to be the wireless, as the bfe0 driver is my wired ethernet card. ...snip... Any help is appreciated. lane ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Lane; When I did the same thing for a Broadcom wireless card the resulting loadable module was named bcmwl5_sys. Did you end up with something appropriate to your .sys and .inf files? Also, the .sys and .inf files that came on the disk that came with the card either wouldn't work with ndisgen, or gave a file that didn't work with the card. I ended up using the .sys and .inf files from the Dell website that were reference in another ndis article. Good Luck. Patrick ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Wireless Inspiron 6400 anyone?
On Sunday 22 October 2006 00:06, Patrick Bowen wrote: Lane wrote: Hello, I've a new inspiron 6400 running FreeBSD 6.1 and I can't get Wireless to work. It works on WXP using the Dell WLAN drivers at http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R115321.EXE I've followed the instructions at http://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/01/05/freebsd-howto-ndisulate-windows-dri vers/ but no ndis driver shows up after kldload if_ndis. ifconfig -a looks like: bfe0: flags=8843UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST mtu 1500 options=8VLAN_MTU inet6 fe80::215:c5ff:feb8:39e%bfe0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1 inet 172.16.1.42 netmask 0xff00 broadcast 172.16.1.255 ether 00:15:c5:b8:03:9e media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX full-duplex) status: active fwe0: flags=108943UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,NEEDSGIANT mtu 1500 options=8VLAN_MTU inet6 fe80::304f:c0ff:fe9c:7541%fwe0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x2 inet 0.0.0.0 netmask 0xff00 broadcast 255.255.255.255 ether 32:4f:c0:9c:75:41 ch 1 dma 0 lo0: flags=8049UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST mtu 16384 inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128 inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x3 inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff00 It seems as if the fwe0 devices wants to be the wireless, as the bfe0 driver is my wired ethernet card. ...snip... Any help is appreciated. lane ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Lane; When I did the same thing for a Broadcom wireless card the resulting loadable module was named bcmwl5_sys. Did you end up with something appropriate to your .sys and .inf files? Also, the .sys and .inf files that came on the disk that came with the card either wouldn't work with ndisgen, or gave a file that didn't work with the card. I ended up using the .sys and .inf files from the Dell website that were reference in another ndis article. Good Luck. Patrick ___ Patrick, Thanks for your attention. Yes, when I tried ndisgen the file bcmwl5_sys.ko was created, but I got a kernel panic when I tried to kldload it. Do you remember the filename that you downloaded from DELL? Did you save it? Or do you have the link for the other ndis article you mentioned? What about pciconf on your system? Does it show this card and chip combination? [EMAIL PROTECTED]:0:0: class=0x028000 card=0x00071028 chip=0x431114e4 rev=0x01 hdr=0x00 vendor = 'Broadcom Corporation' class = network Thanks, again lane If nothing else, your response tells me that I'm on the right track. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Wireless Inspiron 6400 anyone?
Lane wrote: On Sunday 22 October 2006 00:06, Patrick Bowen wrote: Lane wrote: Hello, I've a new inspiron 6400 running FreeBSD 6.1 and I can't get Wireless to work. It works on WXP using the Dell WLAN drivers at http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R115321.EXE I've followed the instructions at http://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/01/05/freebsd-howto-ndisulate-windows-dri vers/ but no ndis driver shows up after kldload if_ndis. ifconfig -a looks like: bfe0: flags=8843UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST mtu 1500 options=8VLAN_MTU inet6 fe80::215:c5ff:feb8:39e%bfe0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1 inet 172.16.1.42 netmask 0xff00 broadcast 172.16.1.255 ether 00:15:c5:b8:03:9e media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX full-duplex) status: active fwe0: flags=108943UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,NEEDSGIANT mtu 1500 options=8VLAN_MTU inet6 fe80::304f:c0ff:fe9c:7541%fwe0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x2 inet 0.0.0.0 netmask 0xff00 broadcast 255.255.255.255 ether 32:4f:c0:9c:75:41 ch 1 dma 0 lo0: flags=8049UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST mtu 16384 inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128 inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x3 inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff00 It seems as if the fwe0 devices wants to be the wireless, as the bfe0 driver is my wired ethernet card. ...snip... Any help is appreciated. lane ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Lane; When I did the same thing for a Broadcom wireless card the resulting loadable module was named bcmwl5_sys. Did you end up with something appropriate to your .sys and .inf files? Also, the .sys and .inf files that came on the disk that came with the card either wouldn't work with ndisgen, or gave a file that didn't work with the card. I ended up using the .sys and .inf files from the Dell website that were reference in another ndis article. Good Luck. Patrick ___ Patrick, Thanks for your attention. Yes, when I tried ndisgen the file bcmwl5_sys.ko was created, but I got a kernel panic when I tried to kldload it. Do you remember the filename that you downloaded from DELL? Did you save it? Or do you have the link for the other ndis article you mentioned? What about pciconf on your system? Does it show this card and chip combination? [EMAIL PROTECTED]:0:0:class=0x028000 card=0x00071028 chip=0x431114e4 rev=0x01 hdr=0x00 vendor = 'Broadcom Corporation' class= network Thanks, again lane If nothing else, your response tells me that I'm on the right track. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Lane; I can't find the article, but the file is R50907.EXE. You can find it by googling dell R50907. Heres a link http://ftp1.us.dell.com/network/R90507.EXE It's a self-extracting Windows archive. BTW, you asked about my pciconf. Here ya go... [EMAIL PROTECTED]:4:0: class=0x028000 card=0x000617f9 chip=0x431814e4 rev=0x02 hdr=0x00 vendor = 'Broadcom Corporation' class= network Also, if this is on a mini-card, you should be able to crack the case and look at the card and see exactly what the chipset is. Mine is a BCM94318. Hope this helps some. Patrick ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
